"'"Who is thar lovelier than Polly Hawks!" he shouts. "Show me the female more entrancin', an' let me drop dead at her feet! Who is lovelier than Polly Hawks, the sweetheart of Flyin' Bison, the onchained tornado of the hills! Feast your gaze on Polly Hawks; her beauty would melt the heart of Nacher! I'm the Purple Blossom of Gingham Mountain; Polly Hawks shall marry an' follow me to my wigwam! Her bed shall be of b'ar-skins; her food shall be yearlin' venison, an' wild honey from the tree! Her gown shall be panther's pelts fringed 'round with wolf-tails an' eagles' claws! She shall belt herse'f with a rattlesnake, an' her Sunday bonnet shall be a swarm of bees! When I kiss her it sounds like the crack of a whip, an' I wouldn't part with her for twenty cows! We will wed an' pop'late the earth with terror! Where is the sooicide who'll stand in my way?"
"'At this p'int the Purple Blossom leaves off dancin' an' fronts up to me, personal.
"'"Whoopee!" he says; "say that you don't love the girl an' I'll give you one hundred dollars before I spills your life!"
"'Which, of course, all these yere moosical an' terpshicoreen preeliminaries means simply so much war between me an' this sperited beau of Polly's, to see who'll own the lady's heart. I explains that I'm not jest then fit for combat, sufferin' as I be from that overabundance of dog an' b'ar. The Purple Blossom is plumb p'lite, an' says he don't hunger to whip no cripples. Then he names a day two months away when he allows he'll shore descend from Gingham Mountain, melt me down an' run me into candles to burn at the weddin' of him an' Polly Hawks. Then we drinks together, all fraternal, an' he gives me a chew of tobacco outen a box, made of the head of a bald eagle, in token of amity, that a-way.
"'But that rumpus between the Purple Blossom an' me never does come off; an' them rites over me an' Polly is indef'nitely postponed. The fact is, I has to leave a lot. I starts out to commit a joke, an' it turns out a crime; an' so I goes streakin' it from the scenes of my yoothful frolics for safer stampin' grounds.
"'It's mebby six weeks followin' them declarations of the Purple Blossom. It's co't day at War-whoop Crossin', an' the Jedge an' every law-sharp on that circuit comes trailin' into camp. This yere outfit of Warwhoop is speshul fretful ag'inst all forms of gamblin'. Wherefore the Jedge, an' the state's attorney, an' mebby five other speculators, at night adjourns to the cabin of a flat-boat which is tied up at the foot of the levee, so's they can divert themse'fs with a little draw-poker without shockin' the hamlet an' gettin' themse'fs arrested an' fined some.
"'It's gone to about fourth drink time after supper, an' I'm romancin' about, tryin' to figger out how I'm to win Polly, when as I'm waltzin' along the levee—I'm plumb alone, an' the town itse'f has turned into its blankets—I gets sight of this yere poker festival ragin' in the cabin. Thar they be, antein', goin' it blind, straddlin', raisin' before the draw, bluffin', an' bettin', an' havin' the time of their c'reers.
"'It's the spring flood, an' the old Cumberland is bank-full an' still a-risin'. The flat boat is softly raisin' an' fallin' on the sobbin' tide. It's then them jocular impulses seizes me, that a-way; an' I stoops an' casts off her one line, an' that flat boat swims silently away on the bosom of the river. The sports inside knows nothin' an' guesses less, an' their gayety swells on without a hitch.
"'It's three o'clock an' Jedge Finn, who's won about a hundred an' sixty dollars, realizes it's all the money in the outfit, an' gets cold feet plenty prompt. He murmurs somethin' about tellin' the old lady Finn he'd be in early, an' shoves back amidst the scoffs an' jeers of the losers. But the good old Jedge don't mind, an' openin' the door, he goes out into the night an' the dark, an' carefully picks his way overboard into forty foot of water. The yell the Jedge emits as he makes his little hole in the Cumberland is the first news them kyard sharps gets that they're afloat a whole lot.
"'It ain't no push-over rescooin' Jedge Finn that time. The one hundred an' sixty is in Mexican money, an' he's got a pound or two of it sinkered about his old frame in every pocket; so he goes to the bottom like a kag of nails.